


Esther

by Treon



Series: Who I Was, Who I Will Be [3]
Category: Megillat Ester | Book of Esther, תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Belonging, Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Gen, Identity Issues, Peoplehood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 06:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10211270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treon/pseuds/Treon
Summary: Images represent the three women - Ruth, Daughter of Tzor and Esther





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstriferousSprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstriferousSprite/gifts).



"Don't tell anybody who your people are."  
  
That's what her cousin, Mordechai, had told her to do when she was called up to the King's harem.  
  
She didn't really see any reason to hide anything.  
  
She had a Hebrew name (Hadassah), but she also had a Persian name (Esther).  
  
Her family's origins were in the land of the Jews, but that was many, many years ago, going back to her great-grandfather.  
  
"Your great-grandfather," her mother had been fond of reminding her whenever she didn't act per the expected standards, "had been exiled with King Yechania and his ministers.  Not with the riffraff who'd been exiled before or after."    
  
Her oft-quoted great-grandfather had been a minister in the Judean King's court, and after the Great Exile to Babylon, he had found his niche in the Babylonian court.  The family had been among the many Babylonians who welcomed the Persian conqueror, King Cyrus, when he liberated the land from its corrupt leaders.  They had served the new kings loyally ever since.  
  
Esther had grown up hearing tales of Judea, that faraway and wonderful land, dripping of milk and honey.  But that's all it was - tales.  Her life was in Shushan, bustling capital of the Persian Empire, and she could not imagine it anywhere else.  
  
She was as Persian as Persian could be.  She looked like any other Persian girl of the court, she had the same tastes in clothes and food.    
  
Whatever her family's origins might be, there was nothing to hide.  
  
Or so it seemed, at first.  She very quickly settled into the life expected of a Persian Queen at the royal court, and as the years went by, she rarely if ever thought of Mordechai's strange request.  She didn't need to hide anything.  It just never came up.  
  
That is, until ten years later, when one day her cousin sent her a message informing her of a decree issued by the King, to murder all the Jews throughout the Empire.  "Beg for your people's lives," Mordechai asked of her.  
  
_Her_ people?    
   
The big secret, Esther now realized, was exactly what could keep her alive.  Nobody knew she was a Jew, and nobody knew she would be included in the murderous decree.    
  
Mordechai laughed that off.  "You will not escape the fate of all other Jews by hiding in the King's palace," he warned.  
  
So maybe that's what made the Jews 'her people'.  They all shared the same fate, at least as far as Haman was concerned.  It did not matter if she was a lowly maidservant or the Queen of the whole Persian Empire, who ruled from India to Ethiopia.  
  
"You have a responsibility for your people," Mordechai said.  He was a true believer in the God of Israel.  He did not believe Jews shared a fate ordained by foreigners, he believed they shared a destiny ordained by the one and only God.  "Do not turn your back on your people, do not turn your back on your destiny.  Who knows, maybe this is the reason you've become Queen.  Now would be a good time to use your connections."  
  
Now Mordechai wanted her to reveal her Jewishness.  Not for her own sake, but for that of her people.    
  
Esther sent back a request to Mordechai: "Gather all the Jews in Shushan and fast on my behalf."    
  
For the past ten years she had been Queen of Persia, the highest position she could aspire to attain.  But as far as Mordechai was concerned, she was just a pawn.  This was all part of God's plan.  
  
Well, even if she wasn't just a Queen but also a Jew, she wasn't just a pawn. She mattered. She would risk her life for her people, and they would pray, not for their own sake, but for hers.  
  
A few days later, when she met the King and Haman at the feast she had prepared for them both, she already knew.    
  
"I and my people," she told the King, "had been sold to be slain."    
  
The Jews were her people.  Not because of fate or destiny, but because of that unbreakable bond that all Jews shared.  The Jews of Shushan cared for her, and she cared for them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Images represent the three women - Ruth, Daughter of Tzor and Esther


End file.
